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Eulenburg: “The local imperial family is admittedly interesting from a psychological point of view. Anyone who does not know the personalities, with all their oddities, will be unable to understand the singular
relationship
among the Emperor, the Empress, the actress, and the daughter.”
³⁴

Valerie admitted in her diary that she “has a groundless resentment to overcome against Frau Schratt—because she is an actress???” Valerie’s fiancé told her, “No, whether she is an actress, a ballet dancer, or Princess XY makes no difference if she is a decent person—I believe that, too—and there is nothing to it—but—but if they talk to me about it, I cannot say: no!—And one should not talk about the Emperor.”
³⁵

When it was a matter of Franz Joseph’s relationship with Katharina Schratt, the otherwise dutiful daughter dared to be critical, confessing to
her diary “how embarrassing to me are Papa’s often rough, contradictory way with Mama, his curt replies…. Though I do know that he means no harm by it, I nevertheless understand that Mama’s view of the future is bleak.” The thought that Franz Joseph might deal less roughly with the actress deeply distressed Marie Valerie. “I wish I need never be with the good woman again and that Papa had never seen her.” Given the
circumstances,
it was almost a humiliation for the Emperor’s daughter to kiss Schratt on meeting and leave-taking, as was also Elisabeth’s custom: “but I am afraid of offending Papa if I omit it even once.”
³⁶

Valerie’s complaints mounted. “The fact that I can no longer always think Papa right in my innermost heart, as once I did, that is the most bitter thing for me—even though the matter is so innocent. Oh, why did Mama bring about this acquaintance, and how can she say to boot that it is a reassurance to her! … How can it be that two such noble natures as my parents can be so mistaken and can so often make each other unhappy.”
³⁷

And after a desolate Christmas in 1889 in the Hofburg, Marie Valerie wrote, “O dear God, how sad is our family life, which seems so wonderful to outsiders, so that Mama and I are glad when we can be peacefully alone. I do not know why, but this has increased to a frightening extent this year.—Papa has such few interests anymore and has—shall I say it—grown so much more dull and petty…. Encounters with my parents made up of small but unbelievably irritating embarrassments—Mama constantly tells me her troubles. And I no longer look at Papa with eyes of fervent admiration.”
³⁸

Prince Leopold of Bavaria, Gisela’s husband, tried to reassure his
sister-in
-law. He thought the Schratt affair “very natural,” he explained to the overwrought Valerie, adding, “It’s just that Franz [Archduke Franz
Salvator,
Valerie’s fiancé] is still so very innocent.”
³⁹

The closer the Emperor’s relationship with the actress became, the less the Empress felt obliged to spend time in Vienna. Marie Valerie: “Mama more and more in low spirits. Her lot is hardest when she is with Papa. The sacrifice of being with him diminishes in necessity to the degree that the unfortunate friendship with Schratt increases.”
⁴⁰

We can easily imagine Valerie’s deep embarrassment when, in 1890, the Empress asked her, “should she die … to encourage Papa to marry Schratt.”
⁴¹

Elisabeth pleaded for circumspection only abroad—for example, when the Emperor, the Empress, and Schratt were all staying at Cap Martin simultaneously in 1894. Franz Joseph to Frau Schratt: “When the Empress wrote you of her wish to see you here, that was not an empty phrase or
an expression of pity, as you thought, but a genuine longing for you, which she felt throughout the journey.” Nevertheless, Elisabeth did not think that a meeting in Cap Martin would be advisable. “Of course, there can be no thought of an incognito here, one is constantly under observation by a crowd of people, the place teems with the curious and the highly placed, and we fear that our relationship with you could be subject to malicious criticism. At home, almost everyone has learned to understand the manner of our friendship, here abroad, and in this place, which, unfortunately, is not quiet but very trafficked and busy, it is different. The Empress, whose judgment is always right, thinks that none of this would harm us old people, but she is thinking first of all about you and Toni.”
⁴²

Furthermore, Elisabeth was increasingly convinced that it must be a hardship for the actress to spend time with the ever less lively Emperor and Empress. Franz Joseph from Cap Martin to Frau Schratt in Monte Carlo in 1897: “I hinted gently to the Empress that you might after all come to visit us, whereupon she replied: The poor thing! You must know that she always thinks that it must be very uncomfortable and unpleasant for you to interrupt your amusements in Monte Carlo to be bored with us old people here.”
⁴³

A few times, differences of opinion arose between Franz Joseph and Katharina Schratt. Each time it was the Empress who was conciliatory and soothed the ruffled feathers, who jollied angry Schratt out of her sulks. The Emperor was so downcast by these quarrels that dealing with him at these times was difficult; everyone around him always longed for Schratt’s return. With her, Franz Joseph behaved exactly as he did with Elisabeth: He was the one who begged, the one who was abject, the one who gave in. Prince Eulenburg dutifully sent detailed reports on these events to Emperor Wilhelm II. “He missed Frau Kathi’s merry chatter about the large and small miseries of the world of the stage, about her puppies and birdies and domestic doings…. He also needs the charm of Frau Kathi’s beautiful femininity, which he commands with the utmost innocence. In short: Matters could not go on without her. Even the Empress seems to have thought so, having already on two previous occasions smoothed over differences of a sort similar to the present situation.”
⁴⁴

However, even Elisabeth at times could not entirely conceal the fact that, in spite of everything, she felt neglected. During one of the last walks before her death with Franz Joseph and their “friend,” she showed her feelings with the macabre wit peculiar to her. They were speaking, as so often during this period, about death, and specifically of Elisabeth’s death. Elisabeth indicated her attitude by quoting an old verse,
“Ach,
da
wäre 
niemand
so,
als
der
Ritter
Blaubart froh
”—literally, “In the event, Bluebeard would be happiest of all,” and obviously meaning that her death would gladden Franz Joseph most. The Emperor grew annoyed and said
defensively,
“Go on, don’t talk that way.” (Katharina Schratt related the story after Elisabeth’s death to Prince Eulenburg.)
⁴⁵

Nevertheless, Elisabeth’s steadfast advocacy of the unevenly matched couple managed to keep the gossip within bounds. So perfect were
Elisabeth’s
discretion and her protection that, to this day, it is impossible to find concrete proof of an affair. The question of whether the imperial family’s reputation suffered as a result of this unusual relationship must, at least for the most part, be answered in the negative. Plainly, this outcome is Elisabeth’s achievement.

The crucial importance of the Empress to the relationship between Emperor and actress could be fully realized only after Elisabeth’s death. For when Schratt could no longer frequent the court as the official “friend of the Empress,” her position became all but untenable. A marriage, which would have legitimized the relationship, was impossible, since Schratt was still (according to Catholic canon law, which was decisive in this case) legally married. Valerie in 1899: “He will never, never renounce her, and unfortunately he cannot marry her, for she is very lawfully married.”
⁴⁶

Two years after Elisabeth’s death, a serious disagreement, lasting several months, broke out between Franz Joseph and Katharina Schratt. The Emperor explained to Valerie “almost in tears, that she [Schratt] has been working since Mama’s death on this decision [to leave the Emperor], because since that time, she no longer felt highly regarded, her position not being a proper one.”
⁴⁷

In response to the Emperor’s sadness, many intermediaries tried to effect a reconciliation and to bring Schratt back to Vienna from Switzerland, where she had gone to sulk. The
Neue
Freie
Presse
printed a bold
advertisement
that caused a great stir: “Kathi, come back—all in order—to your unhappy, abandoned Franzl.” Burgtheater Director Berger wrote to the German ambassador, “since the death of a sovereign lady [Elisabeth], a subtlety has been missing which until then gave to everything a different, more elegant form,” which was completely true.
⁴⁸

The enormous embarrassment surrounding Katharina Schratt after
Elisabeth’s
death damaged the Emperor’s standing. Now, too, the actress did exactly what her great model, the Empress, had done whenever she was offended: Time and again she left Vienna for significant periods of time, and she let herself be implored in vain for a long time before resuming the customary walks in Schönbrunn. One of these serious and long quarrels was ended only by Franz Joseph’s appeal to their “love for her [Elisabeth], the last thing that still unites us.”
⁴⁹
Valerie’s well-meant attempt to
persuade
her father to marry Aunt Sparrow—that is, Elisabeth’s sister, the widowed Countess Mathilde Trani—so that Schratt could return to being “the friend of Papa’s wife,”
⁵⁰
demonstrates the muddle that prevailed after Elisabeth’s protective hand no longer rested on this, her husband’s late love.

When Nikolaus von Kiss died in May 1909, the Emperor was
seventy-eight
and Schratt almost fifty-six years old. By that time—as Franz Joseph’s letters, preserved in their entirety, show—the relationship was still a friendly one but much less ardent than it had been in Elisabeth’s day.

Nevertheless, time and again (of course, only after 1909, when such an event became a possibility), Vienna gossiped about a secret marriage. But there is no proof, nor do the letters and diaries of the families give any indication of such an occurrence. Whatever the case, until Franz Joseph’s death, the two used the polite form of address to each other and met only rarely.